Thank God so many Remainers are available to tell us Leavers what we voted for. Not sure where we would be w/out this service.

We're just replaying what you said feller.

You've been quite clear that Brexit voters knew that no deal was an option, meaning that you think they were too wise to believe the Brexiteer claims that it would be an easy and profitable deal, because the EU need us more than we need them/BMW, prosecco etc.

I quite agree there were many reasons people voted for leave - all manner of issues - which is why claims like "Everyone voted to leave the CU and SM" are so laughable.

Own what your side has done, don't blame us.

This is Nobleman's "I am willing to volunteer as a fool to maintain the internal logic of my argument" gambit.

Thinking No Deal was unlikely is not the same thing as conditioning Leave on a deal. To think otherwise is to argue Leavers believed we should only ever be allowed to Leave on the terms the EU set. You only have to raise the proposition to recognise it is obviously false.

This "No Vote for No Deal" crap is just political gaslighting.

Your argument would have been stronger if there was a thumping majority for leave.

There wasn't - a few hundred thousand votes would have swung it the other way, never mind the clear demographic change in the last 3 years.

It's highly questionable to believe 17 million people judge that the most extreme and damaging form of Brexit is fine, and claims that Brexit would be easy were meaningless and can be written off.

The core Brexiteer argument from day one has been "will of the people". It's time the leading Brexiteers just admitted no deal is what they want and stop feeding us this drivel about democracy.

80% of the votes cast at the last general election were for a party committed to Brexit .

The majority of those votes were cast for a party with a manifesto committment that "No Deal is better than a bad deal" and who repeated that phrase ad nauseum thro the election cycle.

Like I say: this is political gaslighting.

Hold on.

I thought that Bimbo had stopped correlating the election manifestos into an 84% support for Brexit?

The last time I referred to it Mick accused me of lying (I couldn't be arsed to search for the post) and Bimbo denied it.

Are you revisiting it again?

Because it sounds like desperation if you are: even the Mimbo have backed off from that claim.

He's gone into full-on Brexit headbanger loon mode and ignores any evidence that proves he is wrong.

As Philip Hammond wrote in his column today (and he should know given he wrote large parts of the 2017 manifesto)

Quote:

To pretend now that 2016 Leave voters voted for a hard no-deal Brexit is a total travesty of the truth.

I don't know how many times this point needs to be made, but, once again...

Nobody is claiming the majority of Leave voters in 2016 wanted no deal or that the GE or the Ref gives the Tories a mandate to seek No Deal over a deal. It's a total strawman.

The point is:

- Ref votes were cast in the knowledge No Deal could result and preference for (and expectaion of) a deal doesn't mean the Ref mandate is conditional on there being a deal, and - the Tories won the GE on a mandate to try and get a deal but which also provides a mandate for no deal if they can't get a good deal so they literally have a mandate for No Deal.

One minor point, the Tories did not 'win' the election. Or at least they did not achieve a majority.

They are a minority government with a supply and demand agreement, as a result it is constitutionally dubious to say the least to claim they have a mandate for No Deal Brexit.

In addition I think it is pushing it to suggest that the statements around No Deal in their 2017 Manifesto actually amount to a Manifesto Commitment being closer to slogans than proper policy commitments.

Even if you regard the No Deal statements as a policy commitment as a minority government it may be their policy but they don't necessarily have a mandate as a result of their minority status.

Usually this question of a mandate is only relevant to the Salisbury Convention and the right of the House of Lords to vote down legislation unless it is a Manifesto commitment. However it assumes that the government party has a majority of MPs and can therefore vote through government business without support from other parties.

The dominance of the Conservative and Labour parties post-war meant that this was not a really a live issue until the 2010 and 2017 elections as the winning party had a majority of MPs if not of the popular vote and it would have stayed this was if not for the breakdown of the UK norm of majoritarian government.

To summarise the current Government has no mandate for No Deal Brexit (or anything other manifesto commitments).

Not sure the bolded bit is true. The Salisbury Convention isn't formalised so always going to be a gey area but the position of the main parties is:

‘The Government is clear that the Salisbury-Addison convention - that the House of Lords should not seek to prevent the Government from implementing manifesto pledges in legislation - continues to apply’ [to minority governments] – Baroness Evans of Bowes Park, Leader of the House of Lords‘It is far from clear that the Salisbury-Addison convention was ever intended to apply to minority Governments’, however ‘While there may be a residual case for the Lords to in extremis reject a bill at Second Reading, it is not in keeping with our constitutional role and I detect no appetite or serious interest in changing that’ – Baroness Smith of Basildon, Shadow Leader of the House of Lords

“There's a terrible kind of collaboration, as it were, going on between people who think they can block Brexit in parliament and our European friends.” ~ Boris Johnson

Also: Our European friends are not moving in their willingness to compromise, they're not compromising at all on the withdrawal agreement, even though it's been thrown out three times. They're sticking to every letter, every comma of the withdrawal agreement - including the [Irish] backstop.

Is it that Boris is as thick as fudge or that he thinks everyone he's talking to is as thick as fudge? Because it's clear that it's one of these two.

I think he's generally regarded as being reasonably intelligent, so it's probably the latter. And I rather suspect he's right with regard to 52% of them.

“There's a terrible kind of collaboration, as it were, going on between people who think they can block Brexit in parliament and our European friends.” ~ Boris Johnson

Also: Our European friends are not moving in their willingness to compromise, they're not compromising at all on the withdrawal agreement, even though it's been thrown out three times. They're sticking to every letter, every comma of the withdrawal agreement - including the [Irish] backstop.

Is it that Boris is as thick as fudge or that he thinks everyone he's talking to is as thick as fudge? Because it's clear that it's one of these two.

I think he's generally regarded as being reasonably intelligent, so it's probably the latter. And I rather suspect he's right with regard to 52% of them.

Yup, it certainly seems so to me. It's a bit insulting to them, but they're too thick to see it of course.

Remain has a problem in 2019. After 3 years of bollocks, imcompetance and lies from MPs from all sides, a larger than 50% proportion of the country is sick of Brexit and just wants "the whole thing to be over". Hence the large "win" for Leave above.

2 Years, maybe even 1 year ago there was a chance to reverse the Leave decision with another Referendum, but not now. Even a GE won't help.

“The awful thing is the longer that goes on, the more likely it is of course that we will be forced to leave with a no-deal Brexit.

In reality, it is Johnson who is refusing to sit down for talks on a deal with the EU unless the 27 member states agree publicly to ditch what he calls the “undemocratic backstop” and provide a new agreement.

Remain has a problem in 2019. After 3 years of bollocks, imcompetance and lies from MPs from all sides, a larger than 50% proportion of the country is sick of Brexit and just wants "the whole thing to be over". Hence the large "win" for Leave above.

2 Years, maybe even 1 year ago there was a chance to reverse the Leave decision with another Referendum, but not now. Even a GE won't help.

We just need a coherent opposition, rather than quiet Jeremy waiting and hoping for a damaging Brexit.

Maybe remain needs a Farage - a mouthy spiv who can convince people we could revoke and be done with it within hours.

Remain has a problem in 2019. After 3 years of bollocks, imcompetance and lies from MPs from all sides, a larger than 50% proportion of the country is sick of Brexit and just wants "the whole thing to be over". Hence the large "win" for Leave above.

2 Years, maybe even 1 year ago there was a chance to reverse the Leave decision with another Referendum, but not now. Even a GE won't help.

The good news there is if they do cock it up in spectacular fashion it'll make it easier to sell rejoining the EU, the pickings on the positive front are slim, but it's something